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Active Member

I'm not suggesting this is the case mind you, however one of the self-defeating properties of many pandemics is a high and rapid mortality rate amongst hosts. An illness which has a high rate of mortality (which is yet to be seen) over a longer period of time would be much more of a concern. Let's hope that isn't what the data starts to show over time.

Senior Member

Note the previous SARS screening at airports was very poor at detecting SARS:

In Australia only 4 out of the 700 odd who were referred for airport screening (from 1.8 million incoming passengers) were thought to probably have SARS at airport screening but were later found not to have SARS:

Enthusiast

A young Englishman is thought to have the disease in Thailand.2 Chinese tourists were found to have the virus in Thailand.The fellow hadn't been to China so if it is this virus it probably means person to person transmission.

The problem with surveillance is it is thought the incubation period is up to 2 weeks.

They screened for all of those symptoms but none of the people that screened positive had SARS - see article link in post #8

So the screening test is not sensitive = they did not identify any people who had symptoms and also positive SARS patients
And the test is also not specific = they did not reject any patients who had symptoms but were negative for SARS

This is the worst kind of screening test.

The way they detected for high temperature was also erroneous. They used thermal imaging which really only measures skin radiated heat. You can actually get a fever while be cold to touch. Medicos dont measure skin temperature - they measure core temperature - as represented by thermometer under tongue or in ear or under armpit.
Maybe they got to get arriving passengers to walk past the thermal imager with their arms in the air so that armpit temperature can be measured.

New thermal imaging devices can estimate core temps but are very expensive and bulky and not necessarily accurate or fast.

And yes someone could be exposed but be completely normal on arrival while the virus is incubation

Enthusiast

They screened for all of those symptoms but none of the people that screened positive had SARS - see article link in post #8

So the screening test is not sensitive = they did not identify any people who had symptoms and also positive SARS patients
And the test is also not specific = they did not reject any patients who had symptoms but were negative for SARS

This is the worst kind of screening test.

The way they detected for high temperature was also erroneous. They used thermal imaging which really only measures skin radiated heat. You can actually get a fever while be cold to touch. Medicos dont measure skin temperature - they measure core temperature - as represented by thermometer under tongue or in ear or under armpit.
Maybe they got to get arriving passengers to walk past the thermal imager with their arms in the air so that armpit temperature can be measured.

New thermal imaging devices can estimate core temps but are very expensive and bulky and not necessarily accurate or fast.

And yes someone could be exposed but be completely normal on arrival while the virus is incubation

A young Englishman is thought to have the disease in Thailand.2 Chinese tourists were found to have the virus in Thailand.The fellow hadn't been to China so if it is this virus it probably means person to person transmission.

The problem with surveillance is it is thought the incubation period is up to 2 weeks.

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